and a whole lot more…

$XLNX announced
that Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of $BABA, has chosen $XLNX for next
generation FPGA acceleration in their public cloud. Based on Xilinx FPGAs, the
new F2 instances give Alibaba Cloud customers access to acceleration for data
analytics, genomics, video processing, and machine learning workloads.

$XLNX expects 4Q18 sales to be about $635-665MM and gross margin of 69-71%. The company sees operating expenses to increase to about $285MM, including one-time charge of $30MM primarily related to the CEO transition. $XLNX predicts other income of about $3MM and tax rate of about 0-5%.

$XLNX's revenues from Advanced Products for 3Q18 continued to be strong, increasing 30% from the same quarter a year ago and comprising 56% of company sales. This is supported by accelerated growth in the company's industry-leading 20nm and 16nm technology nodes, which inturn reflects very broad-based customer adoption.

$XLNX's BoD declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per outstanding share of common stock. The dividend is payable on Feb. 22, 2018 to all stockholders of record at the close of business on Feb. 7, 2018.

$XLNX reported a 92% drop in 3Q18 earnings due to about $183MM in tax expenses resulting from the recent enactment of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Net income fell to $12MM or $0.05 per share from $142MM or $0.52 per share last year. Revenue grew 8% to $631MM. Operating income increased 16% to $190MM.

$XLNX announced
that Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of $BABA, has chosen $XLNX for next
generation FPGA acceleration in their public cloud. Based on Xilinx FPGAs, the
new F2 instances give Alibaba Cloud customers access to acceleration for data
analytics, genomics, video processing, and machine learning workloads.

$XLNX said that it's too early to predict the revenue from $AMZN's partnership. The company said that it is unlikely to impact the next 18 months in a significant way. By 2020, if this goes well, the market could be larger, $XLNX said.

$XLNX BoD declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.35 per outstanding share of common stock, an increase from the current dividend of $0.33 per share. The dividend increase will be effective in 1Q18, payable on June 1, 2017 to stockholders as on May 16, 2017.

In 1Q18, $XLNX expects sales in the range of $600-630MM and gross margin between 68% and 70%. Operating expenses are expected to be approx $242MM including $1MM of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles.

$XLNX said that a significant portion of wireless business growth comes from India-based deployments. The company, however, said that revenue from India will not be up the scale in the near time as the China-based deployments.

In 3Q17, $XLNX paid $83MM in dividends and repurchased 3.9MM shares for $214MM. The company said that it has returned $665MM to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases in the first three quarters of fiscal 2017.

$XLNX said that accounts receivable for 3Q17 grew to $341MM. This relatively high level of receivables was caused by the pattern of shipments and collection in the quarter and the company sees no collectability issues. In addition, operating cash flow for the quarter was $106MM and was impacted by the higher accounts receivable.

$XLNX expects 4Q17 sales of $590-620MM, gross margin of about 68-70% and operating expenses of about $244MM, including $1MM of amortization of acquisition-related intangibles. The company predicts other income and expenses to be a net expense of about $4MM and tax rate to be about 14% for 4Q17.

$XLNX ended 2Q17 with $3.7Bil in gross cash and $2.1Bil in net cash after debt. Inventory for the quarter was $197MM, about flat sequentially and down $16MM from a year ago quarter. The company expects to generate healthy cash flow going forward.

$XLNX's broadcast, consumer, and automotive segment was up slightly, driven by strength from Audio Video Bridging. GM in 2Q17 was impacted by a licensing agreement with Rambus and was lower than guided at 69.6%. OpEx was lower than guided at $227MM, driven by lower compensation expenses.